Hidden Planet Stats

[Names are for the Weak]

It always bothered me how often rare natural disasters, such as solar flares or eclipses, happened in the game. Even when you account for the fact that one Rimworld day is equivalent to roughly 6 real days, those events happen far too often. Maybe you could implement hidden statistics for the planet that govern how common events are. For an example, your planet could have a weak protective layer, leading to more solar flares, but also more auroras and meteor/cargo crashes. More moons would lead to brighter nights, but more frequent eclipses. More underground pressure could lead to more geysers, but also more volcanic winters and toxic fallout. In addition, there ought to be two kinds of years implemented in the game: chronological and local. Chronological years determine how old a colonist is biologically and chronologically, whereas a local year determines how long the seasons are. For an example, one season on a planet could potentially last three chronological years or merely a few days. Speaking of days, there should also be local days. There are planets in our solar system with days longer than their years, and I think that would be an interesting thing to deal with in your world. I don't know what you could do with the schedule, however. Maybe keep it on a 24-hour schedule, but make it so that it could represent anywhere from a third of a day to a week. You could even give players an option to make the planet tidally locked, with one very hot side that is permanently daytime, a very cold side that is permanently night, and a temperate region down the middle that is permanently twilight. What do you guys think?

[Foefaller]

I think natural disasters, like raiders, are governed by the storyteller.

If you want fewer disasters, ATM you should pick Phoebe Chillax.

Though... this is a good point to add that I would love to see more types of storytellers, like one with an emphasis on natural disasters, one on raids, one on animal attacks and/or diseases, or one that's more likely send you oddball colonists like nudists and cannibals and former pop idols.

Also like the idea of more variants between planets, especially the idea of seasons and day/night cycles that don't match up to a normal day/month.

[tmo97]

Yes please. Tired of being overrun by eclipses under the notion that it's game balance. If your game has such an active roleplay factor that you can have artworks with actual stories generated on them, don't do this.

"This planet's orbit passes awfully close to the solar system's asteroid belt, leaving you with a burst of asteroid impacts every winter. This planet-wide barrage heats up the planet, leaving a mute winter. Wildlife emerging from caves accompanies spring's offset, along with a parabolic flux of flashstorms. This animal excursion brings both abundance and disease."

There you go. Use random backstories code. 

Add variables like, there's less gravel and flat areas on this map overall, there's rocks littered even on flat areas and ice sheets, there's odd mineral distributions due to asteroid composition.

Write it in such a way that you don't need to adapt the probabilities retroactively every time you add something and you can have theoretically infinite variety. Use categories to prevent nonsense such as direct increase and direct decrease of temperature from coinciding.

I'd love this!